


Your Song

by PeregrineWilliams



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Introspection, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 12:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20358874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeregrineWilliams/pseuds/PeregrineWilliams
Summary: I hope you don't mindThat I put down in wordsHow wonderful life is while you're in the world





	Your Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [makapedia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makapedia/gifts).

It takes him much longer than it should to fix things, far longer than she deserves. He's not terrified of writing anymore, not the way he used to be, and it's not even that he has writers' block, because she is his muse, and writing about her is the easiest thing in the world.

He has a different issue entirely, and that is the direction of his writing.

When everything you write comes true, you have to be very careful, both to be appropriately specific, and appropriately vague. It's a fine line he walks with his quill, between wanting to make sure nothing goes wrong, that nothing is left up to chance, but also that he doesn't take away her free will. That's the last thing he would ever want to do.

And that is his problem, because as Fakir sits on the dock and spins a tale about the duck swimming around his feet who turns into a beautiful princess and lives happily ever after, he too quickly loses himself in the fantasy.

He has to write about her in the future, after she turns into a human, thoroughly enough so that it can't be undone. He has to write that she'll be happy, but not prevent her from ever experiencing sadness, or disallow her therapeutic moments of healing. He has to allow her to be a duck, sometimes, when it's not inconvenient, because he knows she's the type of person to miss it eventually, the nostalgia of floating on a pond or flying in the sky. He has to write about himself, always being at her side so she won't ever be lonely, because he promised, but…

He knows his feelings, now. He knows he loves her. He knows he wants to spend every minute of the rest of his life with her. He wants to hold her, and dance with her, and braid her hair, and cook her food, and tend a garden together, and hold her hand as they walk, bear her burdens, and sleep beside her, and press his lips to hers, and ask her to be with him, someday.

He gets lost in it, in his mind, as he ponders what to inscribe into the page next. But he can't write about any of that. He could write forever about how it feels to look into her eyes and touch her skin, but he doesn't know her feelings. He doesn't know if she wants any of that. Even if she did seem happy about his promise, he doesn't know exactly what she thought about it. She still gave everything she had for Mytho, he was sure she still loved him, at least in part, and he would be the last person to blame her for that. Her feelings for Fakir at present are likely strictly platonic, and he's fine with that. He is a knight to a princess, here to serve and protect. If his duty ends up being the same as it was when he was the knight to a prince, he would be content. He's definitely dealt with the same feelings before.

But he doesn't even know if he would be allowed that. He made a promise that he will not break, but he doesn't know how her feelings could develop over time. She could very well grow to hate him. And even if he's sure she wouldn't, it wouldn't be real if he wrote it. It wouldn't be her choice, and without her choice it would mean nothing at all. He couldn't forgive himself if he trapped her.

And so he spends a lot of time thinking, staring at the page as the quill drips, a thousand words about her coming to mind, but each having to go through the rigorous elimination process of every eventuality his mind can fathom before they become concrete. It was easier when he was writing for the present, for though it was a life and death situation, this time anything he wrote could have consequences decades into the future.

But she deserves her voice back. She deserves to be able to live and walk among people again and be treated like a human being. She deserves so much better than she got the last time she was a human.

He starts at the beginning. He needs to come up with a contract, because that's the only way to pin down the volatile nature of magic. There has to be a reason she turns into a human, and a reason she turns back. He could keep the second reason the same as before: there was more chance of it working the less he changed. The first reason has to be incredibly powerful. The last time, it was a piece of a soul that managed it. Parts of the soul, a person's lifeforce, and intense feelings like love or hatred are the strongest when binding magic to. There should also be an action of some kind to go with it, so it works only when you mean it to happen. It also has to work with the established canon of her story, since he is in effect writing a continuation, so there has to be a reason it hasn't happened before now.

The old cliche of a true love's kiss is the first thing to come to mind, and though it may be awkward and embarrassing, it could be his best option at this point. There's a reason why it's used so often, because it is both simple and powerful, and Fakir already knows that his love for her is true and unconditional. He's heard tales of it working even if the feeling isn't mutual, so whether or not she loves him too shouldn't affect the magic. He would only have to kiss a duck anyways, which seems far less of an ordeal than kissing her as a human.

And so, without the time to waste on the method while thinking of the consequences, he decided on the rules of the contract and outlined them, and after much deliberation on the rest, he wrote the story of the girl Ahiru. The continuation of the story of a duck who was bestowed the title of Princess by the soul of a prince. She was unable to profess her love, and yet gave up her title for the sake of her great love for humanity. But for her brief time as a girl, a human fell in love with her, and so she regained her humanity in return. He promised to remain at her side, unbothered by the fact that she could not speak words of love, for her happiness was enough for him, and thus the girl Ahiru was free to pursue her own happily ever after, whatever that may be to her.

* * *

He bound the book in leather, and put it away, on the very top of the bookcase, where hopefully she would never find it. It was time, then, for the moment of truth.

She was sleeping now, curled up between his pillows in their little cottage by the lake, her bill tucked under her wing as her chest slowly rose and fell. Fakir sat down carefully on the edge of the bed, leaned over, and pressed a soft kiss to her feathered cheek. He pulled back and waited with bated breath.

The duck began to glow, and the form of her was lost in a blinding white light. Fakir averted his eyes, carefully covering her with a blanket before turning back to her.

And there she was, as if nothing had ever changed. She frowned and brought her hands up unconsciously to rub at her eyes, only just waking up from the disturbance.

"Hey," Fakir said gently, brushing the hair out of her face. "Good morning, Ahiru."

She stretched and yawned, smiling up at him. "'Morning," she mumbled, closing her eyes again before they snapped open in surprise, suddenly wide awake. Fakir turned away as she shot upright and flung most of the blanket off her. "Fakir! She shouted. "I… I'm…"

"Naked!" he said quickly, but she seemed not to hear him as she grasped at the back of his shirt.

She looped her arms around his waist and squeezed him excitedly. "You… You did it! I can talk! And I have arms! And… And…"

Fakir felt the heat rising to his face as he tried not to think about her pressing against his back. He snapped out of his thoughts abruptly though, when she leaned her forehead against him and he heard a partially stifled sob. "Ahiru?" he said, alarmed but trying to remember not to turn around. "Is something wrong? Did it not work properly?"

He felt her shake her head against his back. "I just… can't believe you actually did it," she said through a sniffle. "Thank you… so much, Fakir."

Fakir sighed but allowed himself a small smile since he was turned away from her. She could really be so emotional sometimes, he wondered where she got the energy for it. "So you're only crying because you're happy?" 

She nodded and squeezed him again, and he tried to pat her arms in a comforting manner. "Now will you please put some clothes on?"

* * *

Fakir stood staring at the wall at the end of the bed as Ahiru got dressed behind him, rummaging in the boxes of clothes he had saved for her.

"Now, I need you to pay attention, because this is important. Do you have a hold of yourself?"

He heard a squeaky "Yes" punctuated by a nose blown on a tissue. He rolled his eyes and sighed affectionately.

"I made you a new magical contract while keeping all the restrictions of the old one, so that it had a higher likelihood of working without unforeseen consequences. This means you will still turn into a duck again if you quack, and that you may cease to exist if you 'speak words of love.' So please, try to be careful."

"Alright, I understand, I promise," she said, and there was an emphasis put on her words that made him think she was trying to convince him she really meant it. "Thank you, Fakir. I really don't know how to thank you enough…"

"You've done plenty, Ahiru, much more than anyone should have expected out of you," he said, trying to keep the twinge of anger out of his voice for all the suffering she endured with a smile. "Now, about turning human...," he started, changing the subject quickly before he could think about it too hard again.

Ahiru wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. "I'm finished," she said. "You can turn around again."

Well he couldn’t, really, with her hugging him like this, but he patted the arms on his stomach awkwardly. He didn’t want to look at her when he said this part anyways, so he continued. “Before, you were in effect bound to a piece of Mytho’s soul that made you human, so I reworked it so that you’re… sort of bound to a piece of my soul instead, except that I retain my own soul this time, so if you transform and you want to turn back, you’ll have to do it by coming to me,” he said as evenly as he could manage. It wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t… the whole truth. He would cross that bridge when he came to it. “Sorry,” he added quietly. _ Sorry it has to be me, _ he tried not to think. “I did leave it somewhat open so it could be switched to a different person under certain circumstances, but it’s me for now.” At least if someone else does come along, he’ll know for sure whether or not they truly love her. Maybe that will make it easier to let her go. Maybe.

She didn’t respond right away, but he felt her squeeze him tighter. She shook her head, then, “I’m glad it’s you. You… You promised you would stay with me, right?”

There was a new ache in his chest he couldn’t fully describe. “Of course. Of course I will. I promised.” He cleared his throat, attempting to clear the emotion from it too, and continued quickly. “Well, I think that’s all you have to worry about. Would you want to go for a walk around the market now, since you can do that again? I’ll make something special tonight, whatever you want. I won’t have to guess from the ingredients you try to point to anymore.”

She laughed a little tearily and nodded, finally letting him go. She bounced out of the room, looking back to make sure Fakir was following her as she spun around the small cottage on the scenic route to the front door. She was probably trying to get used to her long legs again. Follow he did, though more straightforwardly, trying not to get choked up at the sight of her. It really hadn’t been that long since she had last been a girl, since he had felt the touch of her skin and heard her voice, but it felt like a lifetime as a result of the possibility of it never happening again.

They started off to town, Ahiru looping her arm through his and hanging off him as they walked. His heart fluttered momentarily in his chest, but he tried to remind himself of reality. Ahiru was a very physically affectionate person, and she had led a very lonely life, of course she would cling to the only person who hadn’t abandoned her. That, at least, was something he could do for her.

* * *

It wasn’t until after dinner that night that Fakir realised his enormous oversight. He had been so obsessive about the logistics of returning Ahiru to human form with her free will intact that he hadn’t spared enough thought for what came after in the mundane sense. He was faced with this as he stood at the door to his bedroom that night, the only bedroom in the small cottage, staring at his single bed as Ahiru crawled into it. The bed was just fine for himself and a duck, but himself and an Ahiru was a different issue entirely. She casually curled up on his pillow, the same way she had been doing for a few months now, settling in comfortably before looking up at him and suddenly realising the difference herself.

They stared at each other for a beat before Fakir said quickly, “I’ll sleep on the couch, don’t worry.”

She was too fast for him though, and jumped out of bed to grasp his hand tightly before he could escape. He turned back, expecting her to selflessly insist on taking the couch instead and argue how it would be better for her because she was smaller, plus any other reasons he was prepared to refute. ut what actually came out of her mouth was a small broken-sounding plea of “Please… don’t leave me alone.”

Fakir exhaled the breath he had prepared to argue with, and gently covered her hand with his. “Okay,” he nodded, and led her back to the bed to crawl in with her. He felt stupid and selfish for being so distracted by his awkward feelings of attraction that he had almost forgotten her fragile emotional state. He needed to be a companion for her, constantly, whenever she wanted, but especially at night, when every shadow was a reminder of her trauma and despair. It was one of the only selfish requests she had ever managed to make of him, and of course she deserved that, at minimum.

He covered her with the blanket and hugged her tight to his chest, the way he had when he pulled her from Drosselmeyer’s prison, willing himself to be a protective barrier for her from her own thoughts.

“I’m here, Ahiru, I’ll always be here,” he whispered into her hair. He felt her nod against him, and made sure her breathing slowed peacefully before allowing himself to fall asleep too.

* * *

He supposed it had to have happened at some point.

He came home one day from running an errand, and she was a duck. He wasn't really concerned about that specifically, she probably just stubbed her toe and quacked or something. The real problem was that because of this she had been able to fly up and perch on the top of the bookshelf. The bookshelf where he had stashed her story, supposedly out of her reach. Her head turned to him when he walked in, with tears streaming down her feathery cheeks, and he instantly knew what had happened.

He froze in the doorway, staring back at her in horror until she quacked sadly at him. He didn't understand most of her duck noises, but over time he had come to learn that this one was her way of saying his name.

Fakir shut the door and put his bag on the kitchen counter, then stalked off to his room without another word. He didn't want to have to deal with this right now, to address this so soon. He wanted to escape… but he couldn't run away, not from her. Not when he was her lifeline. He couldn't do that to her.

And so as much as he didn't want to, he left his door open for her to come in and hop up on the bed in front of him, trying in vain to hide behind his knees from his shame.

"Fakir," she quacked again, full of pity, and he hugged his knees tighter to himself like a child. The _ last _thing she should do is feel sorry for him. He hated this. He wasn't good at this. This emotional thing. He could only ever express himself with written words, not in person. He needed the distance, between him and the page, between him and anyone who knew how he really felt. The only time he had managed to be sincere without pushing people away before was when her life had been at stake and he had finally been forced to get over himself. He wasn't quite sure if what scared him more was his own vulnerability or his track record of hurting other people with his feelings.

He didn't want her to feel sorry for him. He didn't want her to feel like she had to stay with him because of that. He didn't want to be that person anymore, that forced someone into being with him 'for their own good,' because he was always right and he was the only one who cared properly. 

"Fakir!" Her quack became more insistent, and her little duck head shoved itself between his knees to prod at his face.

He knew it was unfair to deny her after being the one to put her in this position. He sighed and lifted his head, trying to avoid her gaze as he softly kissed her feathered cheek. She started to glow and transformed before him, and he quickly shut his eyes to preserve her decency.

She clearly didn’t care about that though, as her first act when regaining her human form again was to bodily throw herself at him and shove her mouth against his. 

Fakir’s eyes flew open in surprise and his loud, constant, pervasive internal monologue of thought processing ground to an abrupt halt. Ahiru glared at him then, and started beating his chest with her tiny fists, crying and calling him a stupid idiot, but he barely registered it. It felt like it was happening to a different person, and he was just observing from afar. He looked at the scene before him in complete incomprehension.

Small hands gripped the sides of his face so hard as to be uncomfortable, and it managed to bring him back to reality, though his brain still seemed to be restarting from a sudden shut down. “Fakir!” she yelled at him while he blinked at her stupidly. “You idiot! I feel the same as you! I have this whole time! Idiot! Stop sacrificing yourself all the time! I want to be with you! Why wouldn’t you tell me that you’re suffering when I’m right here for you! Idiot!”

She seemed to only have one insult, which she continued to repeat when she went back to punching him in the chest. He tried to process what she was saying to him, but it kept being interrupted by the fleeting feeling of her soft lips. It was like all the intricate structures of thought that made up his rational mind had been torn down at once, as well as all the walls around his emotions. He registered that Ahiru was looking at him oddly now, because he was laughing, and he didn’t think she had ever seen him do that before. It also might have been because he was crying at the same time. He didn’t even know what he was feeling at this point. Stupid? Guilty? Relieved? Happy?

He tried to hide his face behind his hands but she immediately shoved his arms away and hugged him around the neck. He didn’t understand how she could just… do things the way she did. She just hugged him, and told him how she felt, and _ kissed _ him, without taking the time to think about it. How could she interact with the world so easily, as if she was a part of it, and not some stranger forever trying to get a grasp on how it all worked? She was amazing, really. Why was she so much better at being a person than he ever was? And how could she still choose him of all people?

He took a deep, shuddering breath and brought his hands to her shoulders to gently push her away, just to sit in front of him. “Sorry,” he muttered, staring at his lap, and brought his hands up in the mime for ‘love.’ He couldn’t say it, not out loud, not yet, but neither could she, and when he looked up he saw that her hands had reciprocated his gesture. That was more than enough for him. He didn’t have to think so hard anymore. He could just… be with her, and they would be okay.


End file.
